Ethics & Suffering - Ethics
The following is a summary of the section relating to ethics in: Huntingford, F.A., Adams, C., Braithwaite, V.A., Kadri, S., Pottinger, T.G., Sandøe, P., Turnbull, J.F. (2006). Current issues in fish welfare. Journal of Fish Biology 68(2): 331-660.
Human beings may affect the welfare of fish through fisheries, aquaculture and a number of other activities. There is no agreement on the most appropriate means of weighing the concern for welfare of fish against the human interests involved, but ethical frameworks exist that suggest how this might be approached. Within these ethical frameworks, there are complex moral issues of whether and when humans have the right to make use of animals for food production, research, sports and hobbies. Below is a very brief synopsis of the ethical frameworks that can be used to form opinion on animal welfare issues.
Contractarianism
Contractarians hold that one should act morally because it is in one’s self-interest to do so. Parties to this belief must have something to gain by subscribing to it, and must have the capacity to enter into and keep an agreement: this last point excludes animals from contractarianism, and therefore they have no rights under this ethic. Under contractarianism, there is no obligation to treat animals well unless the person has something to gain from it.
Utilitarianism
According to the utilitarian, the interests of every individual affected by an action count morally and deserve equal consideration. An interest is usually defined as "the capacity for suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness"(Singer, 1989). For the utilitarian, ethical decisions require us to strike the most favourable balance of benefits and costs for all the sentient individuals affected by what we do. Utilitarians hold that ethical decisions concerning animal use require us to balance the harm we do to the affected animals against the benefits we derive for humans and other animals.
Rights views
Whereas utilitarians balance harm against benefits, rights theorists hold that it is always unacceptable to treat a sentient being as merely a means to obtain a goal. This will only apply to animal use if it is accepted that animals have rights. If it is accepted that animals have rights, then no benefit can justify disrespect for the rights of an individual, human or animal.
This sort of extreme view probably goes further in its attempt to limit the utilitarian trade-offs than most of us would consider necessary. After all, weighing costs against benefits and seeking what is best overall, in private decisions is part of our daily life. On the other hand, most people would presumably allow that certain rights are sacrosanct, and that there are limits to the extent to which an individual can be sacrificed for an overall benefit. Only a moderate rights view is likely to command widespread acceptance.
How would such a moderate view apply to animal use? The detail would depend on what rights we take to be fundamental. The right to life (or more accurately, the right not to be killed) is often regarded as basic. Curiously, however, this does not appear to be a basic right that people would ascribe to animals: after all, most of us happily eat animals that have been killed just for this purpose. Something like a right to protection from suffering, or significant suffering, seems to be much more promising.
An assumption underlying the previous discussion is, of course, that fish are sentient beings. This matters both for the utilitarian, for whom the ability to suffer and feel pleasure is the key criterion of moral consideration and for the adherents of the rights view, who would typically claim that only sentient beings can be bearers of rights. This assumption, however, is not uncontroversial especially in the case of non-mammalian animals.